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One of the Riverina’s most storied rugby league football clubs have today announced that they will be changing their club name, in accordance with the changing face of their town.
The Wagga Wagga Kangaroos RLFC, a footballing institution responsible for giving us names like Peter Sterling, Tom Raudonikis and Jamie Soward – have today unveiled their new and improved club logo.
From 2022, the team will officially play under the name ‘The Blazing Star Of The Southern Universe Kangaroos’.
This comes after the most recent ICAC findings that revealed just how much tax-payer funded grants were tipped into the town during the 19-year reign of their disgraced former state MP Daryl Maguire.
The NSW independent corruption watchdog is currently investigating whether former state Premier Gladys Berejiklian breached public trust or turned a blind eye to alleged corrupt conduct in connection to the grants, due to a conflict created by her undeclared relationship with Maguire.
Mr Maguire gave evidence on Thursday, and admitted he had misused his parliamentary position, specifically in relation to the grotesque funding granted to the Australian Clay Target Association and Riverina Conservatorium of Music.
Several phone calls between Mr Maguire and Ms Berejiklian which were secretly recorded by investigators during the course of their five-year relationship were played at yesterday’s hearing.
In one 2017 call, Mr Maguire told Ms Berejiklian that Wagga Wagga had the potential to become the “blazing star of the southern universe”
And as the investigations reveal more and more ineligible grants being handballed to some of the town’s local contractors in the 4 years since then, today the Wagga Roos have officially decided to recognise the work of their MP.
“Given the 50,000 seater stadium that Daryl still reckons he can get for us, we decided to re-name the club to the Blazing Star Of The Southern Universe Kangaroos,” said Club Captain Jamie Sterling today.
“It fits into the country rugby league theme of long abbreviations”
“So we’ll have to find a way to fit the BSSUK Group 9 RRL onto the emblem”
“But it will be worth it”
“Putting the greatest southern city in the world on the map”
“Keep on throwing money at us Daz”
The change will reportedly begin from the 2022 season.